Dr. Johnson had, before this, dictated to me a law-paper, upon a question purely in the law of Scotland, concerning vicious intromission, that is to say, intermeddling with the effects of a deceased person, without a regular title; which formerly was understood to subject the intermeddler to payment of all the defunct's debts.

Reception N. reception; admission, admittance, entree, importation; introduction, intromission; immission^, ingestion, imbibation^, introception^, absorption, ingurgitation^, inhalation; suction, sucking; eating, drinking &c (food) 298; insertion &c 300; interjection &c 228; introit.

In the ancient, and in the modern romantic, drama, oracles, portents, prophecies, horoscopes and such-like intromissions of the supernatural afforded a very convenient aid to the placing of the requisite finger-posts"foreshadowing without forestalling."

Vicious Intromission, Johnson's argument, ii. 196-201, 206; iii. 102; v. 48.

See Blackstone's Comment, i. 453. VITIOUS INTROMISSION.

[This argument cannot be better prefaced than by Mr. Boswell's own exposition of the law of vitious intromission.

"It was held of old, and continued for a long period, to be an established principle in Scotch law, that whoever intermeddled with the effects of a person deceased, without the interposition of legal authority to guard against embezzlement, should be subjected to pay all the debts of the deceased, as having been guilty of what was technically called vitious intromission.

If intromission be not criminal, till it exceeds a certain point, and that point be unsettled, and, consequently, different in different minds, the right of intromission, and the right of the creditor arising from it, are all jura vaga, and, by consequence, are jura incognita; and the result can be no other than a misera servitus, an uncertainty concerning the event of action, a servile dependance on private opinion.

If intromission be not criminal, till it exceeds a certain point, and that point be unsettled, and, consequently, different in different minds, the right of intromission, and the right of the creditor arising from it, are all jura vaga, and, by consequence, are jura incognita; and the result can be no other than a misera servitus, an uncertainty concerning the event of action, a servile dependance on private opinion.

It may be urged, and with great plausibility, that there may be intromission without fraud; which, however true, will by no means justify an occasional and arbitrary relaxation of the law.

To permit intromission, and to punish fraud, is to make law no better than a pitfall.

The relaxation of the law against vitious intromission has been very favourably represented by a great master of jurisprudence, whose words have been exhibited with unnecessary pomp, and seem to be considered as irresistibly decisive.

This makes a branch of the law of Scotland, known by the name of vitious intromission: and so rigidly was this regulation applied in our courts of law, that the most trifling moveable abstracted mala fide, subjected the intermeddler to the foregoing consequences, which proved, in many instances, a most rigorous punishment.

Those who before invaded pastures and stormed houses, now begin to enrich themselves by unequal contracts and fraudulent intromissions.

"This masterly argument on vitious intromission, after being prefaced and concluded with some sentences of my own," says Mr. Boswell, "and garnished with the usual formularies, was actually printed, and laid before the lords of session, but without success.

Deus nobis haec otia fecit!Deus, by the intromission of one rarely good mother, and two rarely good, and I may add rarely gifted, wives!